Monday, January 16, 2012

Keep on Truckin'

I think training logs are for people who train, but habits are hard to break.

Monday
4 easy. Did a hard 17 miler with Evan the day before, and I was feeling it this morning. Some hip flexor pain, but cruising pace was acheived. Only one hill. I've got to get to some trails soon.

Tuesday
3 easy. Sitting is the enemy. No wonder sedentary people stay sedentary. Running will free up my back and hip flexors, but they hurt like the dickens in the process. Exercise is certainly an effective medicine, but like lots of medicine, it tastes bad sometimes.

Wednesday
14 miles - Met up with Abbey and Evan in Grand Rapids for Abbey's weekly long run. All the commuting is killing my body(and my wallet). I don't think I felt comfortable until mile 7, but after that, I finally felt like a runner again. Great run overall. Its amusing to run with people who train with speed as their cheif concern. I tend to goof off on longer runs and run slow, but diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks.

Thursday
Sick. Incredibly sick and vomitting violently. My innerds were being wrung out like a dish cloth. Gross.

Friday
7 miles - I love fresh snow. A big storm blew into the lakeshore area, so I headed to the trails for fun run. I arrived at 4, and the sun would be setting a little after 5. I forgot my headlight, so 1 hour was perfect. Ran the snow covered dunes, where the drifts were over knee deep in some spots. All the road running I've been doing made me forget just how much I love difficult climbs. No GPS, no real knowledge of pace. I ran for 77 minutes, so I just guessed conservatively and assumed 11 minute miles. I imagine there aren't too many people who wouldn't have enjoyed this run. The weather was perfect and the snow made it fun. Seeing all the kids at the park on sleds made me realize that playing in the snow is something we only outgrow if we choose to.

Saturday
3 miles - Worked a shift that swallowed up my day. Yeah, I know, full of excuses. Without any time to get to the state park and enjoy more snow, I did a quick 3 miler on the road with Libby(my sister's dog that I was watching). We both slipped all over the road. The dirt road I live on was glare ice, and the road is crowned. I got frustrated and went home.

Sunday
1.5 hour run. State park again, and a little more fresh powder to play in. I hit the singletracks that snake around the dunes, ran along the Lake Michigan Beach, and post-holed along the tree covered ridges. Great run, but I'm glad I forgot my watch. The slow pace would have been a really demoralizing cap to the week. Callin' it 8 miles.

39 miles for the week. This seems pretty bad, and it is when compared to what I'd like to be doing. The only redeeming part about this training week is 3 weightlifting sessions, and 3x 30minute "hill interval" sessions on the Arc Trainer(eliptical type thing at work). The trail runs have been a departure from the typical flat road sessions I've been doing as of late.

Let's see if I can do a little better next week. I'm thinking a long run on the weekend and some hours in the snow, provided it sticks around. Time(as opposed to mileage) based training will mix it up.

1 comment:

You might be surprised how much fitness that ancillary work can build. Strength, core, and treadmill "hiking" (walking really fast on a really high incline for a really long time) have all benefited me greatly.